Surfaces such as clothing, pets, furniture and fabrics are most aesthetically pleasing and safe when they are clean, dry, and free of dirt, debris, shed hair and dander. Unfortunately, such surfaces typically become soiled rapidly due to environmental contaminants such as dust and due to the deposit of dirt and debris by people, machines, and pets and by the shedding of hair.
To address these problems, an adhesive tape brush apparatus has been devised which includes a gripping handle. The previously known adhesive tape brush apparatuses known as lint rollers have used a number of different means to rotatably mount the lint roller support to the handle. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,923, the lint roller support/handle are separately constructed and then secured together. A disadvantage of this type of lint roller assembly, however, is that the rotatable connection between the handle and lint roller support is subjected to mechanical wear and tear and ultimately mechanical failure. Another disadvantage is that the two pieces require assembly. A still further disadvantage of this type of previously known lint roller assembly is that the lint roller support assembly rotates making it impossible to lock in place for use with directional lint remover fabric or adhesive tape lint removal rolls, which requires a fixed support section to facilitate a brushing motion. Still other types of previously known lint remover assemblies, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,695, have the handle injection molded in two halves which, however, requires expensive and complex molds and assembly, which is slow and expensive and facilitates a rotatably used adhesive tape roll.
While such lint brushes have found widespread effective use in removing hair and debris laying loosely on various surfaces, such lint brushes have proven somewhat deficient at removing hairs, such as animal hairs which are embedded in the fabric. Animal hairs, including cat hairs, frequently become embedded end first in the clothing, upholstery, or drapery fabric. Moving a rollable lint brush across the exposed end of the embedded animal hair does not have sufficient friction to pull the embedded portion of the hair from the fabric. In this case, the lint brush merely rolls over the animal hair and does not remove it from the fabric.
Unidirectional brushes have been provided using a fabric mounted on one end of a handle. Such brushes are drawn in one direction across a fabric or other surface to be cleaned. Since the fabric is placed in a single, non-movable layer about one end of the brush assembly, it typically is capable of developing sufficient friction to remove embedded animal hairs from furniture or other fabrics.
However, cleaning of such unidirectional fabric is difficult since the fabric is tightly and fixedly mounted on the brush and cannot be removed for more convenient cleaning or disposal. Typically, the unidirectional fabric brush is cleaned by brushing it against another fabric or against the user's fingers.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a lint brush which utilizes a roll of separable outwardly facing adhesive tape sheets which are removable from the roll when the outermost sheet becomes soiled and yet are stationarily affixed relative to the handle so as to develop sufficient friction when moved across a surface being cleaned to remove embedded animal hair from fabric, furniture directly from an animal's coat or other surfaces. It would also be desirable to provide such a lint brush which is capable of employing both a unidirectional fabric and a roll of separable adhesive sheets, either individually or in combination for more widespread application depending upon the cleaning needs of a particular application.
Lint and pet hair tape rollers have refills that are typically sized to fit the roller tool and are sold singularly or in multiple packs or combination packages made of cardboard or shrink wrap film. The problem with these refills is that they are provided in single rolls which require extra handling for packaging.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a lint and/or pet hair tape roller refill which can be more conveniently packaged for a reduced manufacturing cost.